Features
GoDaddy allows beginners to easily set up their website or WordPress blog. They provide site creation tools for beginners and advanced developers alike. All the web hosting packages support various programming languages such as CGI, PHP, ASP, Perl, MySQL, FrontPage extensions and ColdFusion. Unlike web hosting providers, GoDaddy.com offers just unlimited bandwidth. In its Economy Plan, it gives 100 GB of disk space, 100 email addresses, and 25 sub-domains. Some of the general features include FTP over SSL, raw access logs, 24/7 phone/email support, file manager, forums and a photo gallery. GoDaddy is easy to use and have user-friendly file, domain and database managers.
Reliability
Just like other web hosting providers, GoDaddy.com promises an uptime of 99.9 percent. Reliability is one of the most important factors to consider when choosing a web hosting provider. Experiencing downtimes can be costly, especially if you maintain an online store. Except for the major downtime in 2012, GoDaddy has never let their customers down when it comes to their servers’ uptime. Customers are assured that their websites will stay up most of the time. The company has redundant UPS power supplies and technicians are on hand 24/7 to monitor the servers.
Price / Value
GoDaddy offers three web hosting packages. These are Economy, Deluxe and Ultimate. Customers are given marketing credits from Bing, Google, Yahoo and Facebook. This is perfect for beginners who would want to promote their first website.
Economy is designed for customers maintaining a single website and costs as low as $6.99 a month. It has 100 GB disk space, unlimited monthly bandwidth, and 50 FTP users. Deluxe Plan provides the Best Value among the three. It allows hosting of unlimited websites at $8.99 a month. It also provides unlimited disk space and monthly bandwidth. The Ultimate Plan goes for as low as $14.99 a month. It has all the features of Deluxe as well as a year SSL certificate and Premium DNS. These packages are ideal for local sites, blogs, small businesses and websites that receive a small number of visitors daily.
GoDaddy also provides Managed WordPress Plans that allow users to create their own WordPress site, and GoDaddy will do the hosting, setup and security. The Business Plan is for small businesses, active bloggers and freelance designers who are expecting to get 250,000 monthly visitors on up to five websites. It costs as low as $29.99 a month. For heavy users, web developers and creative agencies, there’s the Pro Plan that costs $29.99 a month.
Performance
GoDaddy has several first class data centers in the United States, Europe and Asia. Customers can choose the closest data center in order to get a better hosting speed. Although customers can choose the location of their servers, performance still lags compared to the average 600ms in the web hosting market. For high performance hosting, customers can go for a virtual private server.
Customer Support
The technical support group of GoDaddy consists of professional consultants and experienced experts who are ready to provide help all day and night. Customers who have problems with their web hosting can contact the support center through a toll-free number or email. Their blog also contains answers to common problems that allow users to find appropriate solutions for issues they face. The only thing lacking is the live chat feature. GoDaddy has maintained a good reputation when it comes to customer support. They answer calls right away. They respond to emails within 10 to 15 hours.